Looking Back Part 1

WOW, I definitely fell off the blogging wagon. 16 months have come and gone, and I am back in the states. I'm so blessed to have such a supportive family, amazing friends, and the best mentors I could ever ask for. So how about I recap the last 16 months. I'll break it up into easy to read chunks, so this will be MD1 semester, the first 4 months of my island adventure.

My trip down to Bonaire wasn't a smooth one. Took the redeye out of Seattle to Miami. As I wondered through the Miami airport at 6am local time, which means my body thinks it's 3am, I'm trying ignore the nausea that I am feeling, no doubt from the stress of travelling and lack of sleep. I'm one of those people that can't sleep on an airplane, and when I do it's not a deep enough sleep so that it's restful. I'm carrying my neck pillow, dragging my rolling carry-on, and adjusting my 40something pound backpack. Arriving at my gate, I realize I have 4 more hours to kill. Settling into my seat I pull out my laptop and browse the web aimlessly for a bit, then I pull out a book to read. No, not a textbook, a fun book about Lady Jane Grey, that has nothing to do with 50 Shades of Grey. My dad calls my phone, I think to myself, "THANK GOD I ONLY HAVE ONE MORE HOUR TO WAIT HERE!" He wishes me well, and I struggle to keep the tears from falling, never knew how much I would miss my parents. The flight to Curacao was not remarkable, however, it was afterwards that trouble struck. Apparently my American Airlines flight arrived after my DAE island hopper flight, so I missed my connection. (Any current/future SJSM students, DON'T FLY DAE!). Luckily American put me put for the night at the gorgeous Marriott hotel in Curacao. Then morning comes and I am greeted with the sight of a pink airport. Yeah, the Bonaire International Airport is pink.  Getting my luggage was an easy task, and since I had already gotten the place I wanted to live lined up, it was easy enough to tell the taxi driver, one less stress off my back. I got to my apartment and realized that there was a lot of things that I had to buy. Great . . . 

Bonaire's PINK airport

School was fine, most of us students dressed up for orientation night. It was interesting, 120something of us jammed in a room along with the professors and the dean. Fire marshalls would shudder at the sight of all of us in the room. The bus ride was probably the most memorable things for me. I met some people who still remain friends of mine today. I will never forget the day that MV met SA, hahaha. The Cowboys Giants rivalry lives on even on a little island called Bonaire.

Immigration was a PAIN! I should have gone right after orientation to make the appointment, but silly me I waited until after we did the Dutch paperwork in class. Womp, womp. I almost missed the deadline for my police clearance. That was something that they could have told us, get a new police clearance before arriving on the island since it will probably expire before you get your appointment. Oh and telling us it was going to cost $372 cash would have been nice too. Along with the 4 trips you have to make to the immigration office. Yes, FOUR trips to the immigration office to get your residence visa. That should tell you why I didn't go through the whole get the exit stamp thing before I left. Island time, island logic . . . 

We got to experience what Bonaire rainy season was like. Pretty much torrential downpours on an island that has bad drainage. Getting to the bus stop was like an obstacle course, hoping and praying that the sweet locals wouldn't splash you with their cars. Yes, they go out of their way to splash you. The drainage system, or lack thereof was why the downtown campus looks like a swimming pool during the rainy season. There are certain streets were you'd think it was better to swim down it than walk down it. Now, you're thinking, "Hey. It's raining so it must be cooler." True, it is pretty cool when it is raining but afterwards it gets so sticky and muggy, it sucked the most on lab days. 

I'll admit I was pretty homesick most of the first semester, and it comes in waves. There would be days where I felt okay and I have my island friends/family to thank for that MA, SA, MV, LS, JW, and the small list goes on. MV and SA would give me a hard time about being a Seahawks fan, but who's in the playoffs this season? Hahaha. Other days, it would be bad, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball in bed and cry, sometimes that's exactly what I did. I do also have great friends at home, and one of them was so kind to come down and give me a little taste of home for a week, as well as be a pack mule for me and my friends. It was fun to have that little break from school and the drama, OH there was DRAMA. 

I think the hardest thing for me even now is to not trust and care about people as quickly as I do. I managed to get my feelings hurt quite a bit in these last 16 months, but they did also help me grow. The drama helped me see who my real friends were on the island, and I'm okay with the fact that my circle of friends isn't that big. Quality over quantity, always. 

You know sitting here and typing this out, I can still see in my head where I sat in the classroom, and where everyone else sat. In one way it feels like such a long time ago, in another it seems like just yesterday. If you have read this far into this blog post I'm amazed, I'm kind of just rambling, but I want to kind of get this out there. I know a lot of my friends at home wanted to know what it was like, and I had all these grand ideas about how I would blog while I was there. Oh well better late than ever. 

Most of us at our pre-semester get together